Category: Uncategorized

Holes Diamond Engagement Rings Come From

I never thought I would, but I am finally getting married. Not because I couldn’t find someone, I just needed to find someone who shared my World of Warcraft habit. Anyway, I didn’t realize that finding a diamond engagement ring would be such a big deal. Pardon me, but I find the idea of choosing a piece of female jewelry the most boring thing this side of a medically induced coma.

I mean c’mon, what’s a diamond anyway? It’s just a piece of carbon, compressed deep inside the core of the Earth and the hardest thing known to man. But when I say it like that it sounds kinda cool.

My previous knowledge of diamonds before this research is the James Bond movie, Diamonds are Forever. I think there was also a Bond villain whose face was embedded with diamonds? Lets not forget the Pink Panther movies, and of course, the last Danny Ocean movie was all based around a diamond heist.

But listen, it’s not just movies that make diamonds interesting, the way they get diamonds out of the ground is also really cool.

Huge volcanic action pushes the precious stones up to the surface of the Earth in what are called Kmberlite pipes. All you have to do then is rip up the ground and dig them out. This means huge open cast mining techniques are used leaving massive, open wounds. As if the Planet developed a huge zit burst by mining and left as an everlasting scar.

World Diamond Production for 2006

South Africa

67,000,000 cts

Russia

23,400,000 cts

Botswana

24,000,000 cts

Canada

12,350,000 cts

Australia

7,305,000 cts

Angola

7,000,000 cts

Democratic Republic of Congo

5,600,000 cts

Namibia

2,200,000 cts

Ghana

780,000 cts

Sierra Leone

360,000 cts

Guinea

355,000 cts

Central African Republic

315,000 cts

Brazil

300,000 cts

Ivory Coast

200,000 cts

Tanzania

195,000 cts

China

100,000 cts

Venezuela

45,000 cts

Liberia

7,000 cts

Ekati Diamond Mine, Canada

Ekati diamond mine is one of the biggest in Canada. It is the most recent diamond mine on the Planet. It is both a surface and an underground min. Its location is in the Arctic Circle and has to be supplied by frozen road in the winter, although it does have a runway big enough to take large jets.

Mirny Diamond Mine, Siberia

This huge hole in the ground is so big helicopters have been banned from flying over it because of the down draft sucking down aircraft.

The hole is 1,200 meters across and over 500 meters deep. It is in Siberia and is absolutely huge, notice the contrast of the buildings to the hole. It takes the massive trucks hours to reach the top on the hole, hauling 200 tonnes at a time.

Kimberley Big Hole Diamond Mine, South Africa

Kimberly mine is where Cecil Rhodes, the man after which Rhodesia was named (later to become Zimbabwe) made his fortune. It is the biggest hand dug hole in the world, it’s depth being over 1,000 metres.

The mine has given up over 3 tonnes of diamonds and finally closed in 1914.